On Monday, April 5, 2010 at 7:21:55 PM UTC-10, GP49 wrote:
> Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9
> RAI Symphony Orchestra
> Otto Klemperer, conductor
> Live broadcast concert
> http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=44dea677a83d2311111096d429abd3607274d1436d3c638882e3a934329c7a5e
> OR, if you don't like how long links get displayed in abbreviated form
> on some message readers:
> http://tinyurl.com/yaep4xy
> From a mint-condition Fonit Cetra LP
> Three FLACs, mono. Tracks are divided the same as on the source LP,
> with Movements 3, 4 and 5 in one track.
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Otto Klemperer is not exactly the first conductor one associates with
> composer Dmitri Shostakovich.
> Klemperer never commercially recorded Shostakovich but a radio
> broadcast
> documents his live concert performance of the Shostakovich Symphony
> No.
> 9 with the RAI Symphony Orchestra in Turin on 21 DEC 1956. This
> recording has been issued intermittenly on various labels (which
> misdate
> it as "1955"); but it does not appear to be currently available.
> Musicweb International, in its website, compares Klemperer's
> Shostakovich 9 to that conducted by Rudolf Barshai:
>
> > ...Barshai proved that a Russian could be perfectly idiomatic in
> > Mozart and Beethoven. After his move to the west in 1976 Barshai has
> > won a lot of respect without ever quite making it to the top. The
> > booklet profile (from a commercial issue of Barshai's Shostakovich
> > cycle), taking up a comment by Shostakovich about Barshai’s "Eroica",
> > states that his "music-making could most easily be compared to
> > Klemperer’s".
> >
> > Easily said, when Klemperer recordings of Shostakovich are not
> > exactly two-a-penny. But wait, there is one, so let’s examine the two
> > conductors in Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony. Klemperer’s 1955 Turin
> > performance of this work used to be available on a Cetra LP and is
> > occasionally re-broadcast by the RAI; we may hope that one day a
> > re-mastering of the original tapes will produce a less scrawny sound
> > than that of the off-the-air tape I am working from. At the outset
> > Klemperer is so much slower than Barshai that it seems ridiculous,
> > but then you realise that he is thoroughly enjoying the droll humour
> > of it all, and he gets bouncier rhythms and cheekier phrasing. It
> > sounds closer to Kurt Weill’s pre-war Berlin than to post-war
> > Shostakovich, but it has character and I’m afraid Barshai’s neat
> > reading sounds merely bland in comparison. Klemperer also gets a
> > weird mixture of beauty and sleaze out of the second movement and in
> > the third movement, where he is scarcely slower than Barshai, the
> > players sound possessed where Barshai’s are no more than spick and
> > span. By this time Klemperer has the Turiners absolutely under his
> > thumb. The brass in the fourth movement blow raspberries in a way
> > Barshai does not even attempt and the Turin bassoonist is momentarily
> > transformed into the greatest bassoonist in the world as Klemperer
> > coaxes a saxophone-like whine and some bilious rubato from him. And
> > in the finale Klemperer, at a faster tempo than Barshai, again revels
> > in the cheekiness of the music.
> >
> > So please, a warning to over-zealous fans of present day musicians:
> > don’t make comparisons that risk blowing up in your face! Barshai is
> > a very fine conductor but a great conductor is another thing and
> > Klemperer, even in music for which he presumably had only a passing
> > interest, was unmistakably that.
> -MusicWeb International article:
> http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/July02/Shostakovich_Barshai.htm

(Recent Y. upload):

Repertoire: The BEST Shostakovich Ninth Symphony